


In Other Words and Other Worlds

by GrenadesAreTicking



Category: Sharp Objects (TV), Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn
Genre: Alan-centric, Based off of both the show and the book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 09:54:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17221742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrenadesAreTicking/pseuds/GrenadesAreTicking
Summary: Alan is left to reanalyze everything he knew about his family, and where he can go from here.





	In Other Words and Other Worlds

Alan finds himself alone, when it is all over. They all leave him, and he never had even seen it coming. His Adora, beautiful and perfect. She had played him like a fiddle, led him where her dirty tune wanted him to go. She had killed his child, Marian, and yet no matter how sick it was to admit, he still adored Adora. He just wished that he had seen it all sooner, before the women in his life had led him down this fucked up rabbit hole. 

Marian, dead by her own mother's hand. Alan wants to allow himself to grieve once again for his dead daughter, starts to. Then he realizes that the only things he can remember about her are things he heard from Adora or witnessed indifferently. Had Marian ever really been his daughter, in anything but blood ties and a shared living space? The realization jarred Alan to the core. He found himself in the dead child's room, tossing around dainty shoes and ripping apart silk blouses, sobbing into a pristine white pillow that has not been slept on by it's young owner in at least a decade. Mourning, for the second time, a stranger in many ways. The room should have been tossed anyway, he tries to reason. It's sick keeping around the belongings of a girl dead for so many years now. As if that was the sickest thing that had stained this house. 

Amma, the madness of her mother running through her veins in a whole other kind of way. Just like Marian, he realized he didn't know much about Amma, what she liked, beyond that damn dollhouse. Alan had allowed Camille to take Amma, it had seemed the better solution than trying to raise her himself. There was no way for him to look at Amma without seeing the grave she was almost buried in, seeing Adora dragged away in handcuffs.

When he finds out that Amma was the one who killed those little girls, the horror of it does not hit him the way it had with Adora. That had been a wave of shock, he had been a disciple of an angel then had realized that what he had been worshiping was really a demon in disguise. Like realizing she had her claws ready to dig into him and tear out all his good bits, all the while smiling at him and forcing him to pray out to her even as she sucked the marrow from his bones, in fact had already begun on her meal long ago. With Amma, all he does is just close his eyes and numbly nod along as he is given the news by Chief Vickery.

At the end of it, all Alan can do is feel slightly amused that Camille, who his Adora had always seemed to need defending from, had ended up being the sane one after all. At least for this cursed family. He idely wonders if Vickery still wants to fuck his Adora, or if all the batshit crazy was enough to make Vickery repentant. He probably still would fuck her if he had the chance, Alan was sure of it. Adora didn't leave your mind that quickly. He would know. 

In the end, he finds himself turning to the last daughter he has left, the one who isn't even his daughter at all. Camille is nice enough to him, as he tries to press money into her hands and babbles about making amends. She pats his back, when he falls onto her, tears running down his gaunt face as he snatched up one of her arms. He yanks up her sleeve, takes in the words carved into her. 

"Which ones are hers?" He asks, voice wavering. 

"They're all from me," Camille tries to tell him, confused as to what he is getting at, but Alan stares into her eyes, shakes her until she understands what he is asking. "In a way, they all are from her." She admits, pushing out of his grasp.

"Do you think, Amma, Adora, Marian-" His words fail him for a second. Camille appears a bit stunned by all this, and he is sure she is. Alan has never felt or shown such potent emotion in all his life. He feels unhinged. "Could I have stopped any of it? Was any of it because of me?" Camille looks at her shoe, scuffs it against the ground, looks back up at him. 

"Yes and no, in that order. Yes, you could have stopped it if you had just seen it." Alan tries to recompose himself and knows he has failed when the tears begin to stream into his mouth, salty bitterness. They taste of regret and better paths unchosen.

"And did I cause it?" He whispers out the question almost shyly, gaze turning to the ground.

"No, it was all Adora. Everything fucked up with you, with me, with Amma. It was all because of her. Adora is poison, Alan. That's what her love, or lack of it, that's what it does to a person." Camille probably knows what she's talking about, with all the mental help she's had to see in her years.

Still, when Alan leaves Chicago and goes back to Wind Gap determined to move on, he finds himself constantly in the past. The whole town pities him or hates him in equal measures. He is not like Camille, he cannot leave Wind Gap. He settles back in the house once the police finally vacate it. With his family either dead, in jail, or in Chicago, Alan is alone here. In his loneliness, looking back on it all, Alan can finally see it. 

He sees his Adora, in all that she is. He still finds her beautiful, malice-filled and empty though she is. Alan knows Adora might never get out of prison, or at the very least be old when her sentence ends. He also knows that he'll wait for her. It's too late for anything else. Alan let this grave be dug for him, now it is time for him to lie over in it. He wants to entertain all those what-ifs. He wants to stop loving Adora, but he can't. He wants to fix it all with Camille, but he doesn't know how. 

He read once about reincarnation and different timelines, had not cared much for the idea. Now he prays, not that God seems to be listening to him much anymore, that such a thing is true. All he can hope is that in some other lifetime, they were not like this. Maybe in some other reality, they were an actual family, with love and no bloody secrets. Alan can only hope for it, that this isn't their fate every time. Next time they'll get it right, perhaps.

**Author's Note:**

> I flipflopped a little between past and present tense in thise one and struggled with Alan's character, but I hope that it's still decently enjoyable to you!


End file.
